272 East and West 
thoroughbred look and the beauty of his 
person. My friend the Western meadowlark 
is a bird apart—a voice—mysterious and 
beautiful, rising from the ground but speak- 
ing ever of the sky: not a song so much as a 
voice—one not to be described, but once 
heard, never to be forgotten. 
It is good to have friends among the birds. 
They redeem the dreariest waste. Where- 
ever they are, there are we at home. When 
I stroll in Central Park and encounter a car- 
dinal, I see again the cotton fields and cy- 
press swamp. The junco hopping under the 
bushes on the lawn transports me to the 
clearings in the dim spruce woods where I 
have often looked for its nest; and when the 
little winter wren comes creeping mouselike, 
the spirit of the wild descends upon me then 
and there as if I had had a whiff of balsam, 
and I am whisked away on the wings of fancy 
into the mountain solitudes where we have 
so long been kindred spirits. 
The society of American birds, as I have 
said, is a part of our inheritance; how large a 
part, depends upon our own companionable 
qualities, our capacity for making sylvan 
friends. Every pond shore, meadow, and 
pasture in our continental garden holds de- 
